Historically, the sanitary spaces, i.e. bathrooms, lavatories or washrooms, of buildings with several floors and several apartments have water and sewage installations arranged into vertical shafts running inside structural walls, and into horizontal lines inside the floor/ceiling structures between the floors. In other words, the pipes and other conducting elements for water and sewage installations are embedded within structures of stone, concrete, tile or other such building material. At the time renovations, when the water and sewage installations need to be replaced, costly and time-consuming cutting-in operations are needed to access the pipes.
In newer buildings, as well as when the wet spaces of older buildings are renovated, modern constructions rules and building codes may require that all such pipelines must be installed so that they are accessible for maintenance, repair and future renovations without breaking the wall or floor/ceiling structures of the building. For example, water conduits leading fresh water from a mains line to a shower, a toilet or a washbasin must be surface-installed on the walls. Naturally, there are lead-through points for the pipes between floors and walls. In addition, modern building codes have strict requirements for wet sealing and water proofing, i.e. providing water barrier membranes that are continuous within a sanitary space, as well constructions that allow possible leaks to be detected by leading the leaking water/liquid outside any closed structures where they become visible.
These kinds of installations are time-consuming and require great precision from the persons conducting the installations, to avoid any mistakes that could lead to water or moisture damages within the sanitary space or building structures.
To avoid the above-mentioned problems, different prefabricated sanitary room installation assemblies or plumbing arrangement elements have been introduced to partially replace on-site installation, especially in new buildings but also in renovation projects.
The plumbing arrangement elements are intended to be installed in a vertical line in each vertically successive or adjoining sanitary space of a building to form continuous vertical pipelines for all the necessary plumbing and other conducting elements. The plumbing arrangement elements usually comprise a cassette or cabinet with at least part of the plumbing, piping, insulation and their connecting points pre-installed within the cassette casing at a factory by experts, thus eliminating the need of on-site precision work and avoiding possible installation mistakes.
The current solutions, however, require a certain amount of skilled work in aligning the vertical lines of pipes and other conducting elements, leading them through the floor structures between two vertically adjoining sanitary spaces, and connecting the pipelines. Especially when the on-site personnel is not used to working with such installation assemblies, problems may arise. For example, aligning water pipes through floor structures may be challenging.
Normally, the prefabricated plumbing arrangement element and the pipes within are considerably shorter than the floor-to-ceiling height of the space. When installing the plumbing arrangement element, the personnel need to connect the pipes of two vertically adjoining spaces by supplying connecting pipe sections between the preinstalled pipes, accomplish all required connections and install other elements such as insulation and casings, often in very confined and ergonomically difficult spaces.